


A Night of Silent Memory

by Nightwing_Hunter



Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Jem is good at the violin, Jem is still suffering, Memories, Parabatai Feels, This Is Sad, Will is still suffering, obviously, spoilers for TID, why am i like this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 15:50:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15100025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightwing_Hunter/pseuds/Nightwing_Hunter
Summary: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE INFERNAL DEVICES DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE ENTIRE TID SERIESNo, seriously, DON’T. THE BOOKS ARE REALLY GOOD YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED ABOUT THEM.In the Silent City, Brother Zachariah remembers better days. This was written by a friend of mine (who isn’t on AO3) who gave me permission to post this.





	A Night of Silent Memory

IN THE CITY OF BONES, REMINISCENCES DID NOT COME EASILY TO HIM as they ever did long ago. He could feel them, sometimes, late at night, when he would rest and stare up at the space above as if he could find the sky buried here with him—it made him feel not quite so alone. The memories slipped by under his eyelids, years turned to decades turned to more than a century of silence, and he spent long days in the outside feeling human joy and compassion reach his fingertips and then recoil, as if the creature he was now could not bear to hold onto those emotions.

Brother Zachariah looked up at the walls of the Silent City, his hood off and his slender hands clasped in front of him. He could never shake the feeling of imprisonment inside this place, as if he were trapped in some sort of nightmare—but as nightmares went, this wasn’t the worst one. At least he still had a part in the world above, however lonely it was down here, his only company the low humming of the dead.

His staff sat beside him, long and weathered from years of use. If Zachariah ran his fingers over it, he could feel the ghost of the letters in the darkness:  _ W.H.  _ Sometimes it was the only tether he had to his past, on those mirk nights he could not remember his own name—but he could remember the name of his  _ parabatai _ .

Now, Zachariah could feel the memories tingling in his palms. If he concentrated, he could see a pair of deep gray eyes in his mind, hear a moment of laughter that used to be his own ringing in his ears. Will never failed to make him laugh, no matter the situation.

On bleak nights such as these, Zachariah would reflect back upon his past, knowing nothing could disturb him from it. He was not like the other Silent Brothers here, and he was closer to the ability to remember than any of them.

And so Zachariah grasped his staff, finding the imprints of his fingers on the faded initials, and closed his eyes, letting the memories unfold in the darkness.

  
  


WHEN HE HAD FIRST COMPLETED THE RITUALS AND WAS GIVEN HIS OWN place in the Brotherhood, he saw to his first night of visions and remembrance. He’d chosen his name,  _ Zachariah— _ “remember,” so that he might never forget the love that was so keen on slipping through his fingers, more an echo now than a memory. That had been the first night he’d carved Will’s initials into his staff, so they would always be fighting together, but also the first of many nights that he would start calling himself Brother Zachariah instead of James Carstairs.

That first night, as he was caught in the space between consciousness and oblivion, the first memory that had come to him was of the nightmare Will had had when they were only fifteen. He never thought how much of an impression it would leave on him, but as the anguish clouded the sharp blue of Will’s eyes, he remembered needing to do anything he could to stop it.

 

**It had been one of those evenings when moonlight spilt through the curtains and onto his bedroom floor, raining like needles onto the case of his violin. Jem had been playing with a feverish sort of movement, having just taken a bit of the** **_yin fen_ ** **he kept in the box on his nightstand. He always played his violin after taking the drug; he found solace in the instrument in a way he never did with anything else.**

**As the effects of the** **_yin fen_ ** **calmed into something he was able to control, Jem started to deepen the bow strokes across the strings, put more pressure across them. He imagined his Guarneri trembling under the weight, as if he played the burden of all the imprints of souls on his life into the exquisite instrument.**

**Down and down, his music spiraled, twisting the Telemann he had just been playing into something darker and grittier. It rose in slow waves and descended down into the depths of whatever the** **_yin fen_ ** **had done to him, and Jem closed his eyes as it wrapped around him. The piece was still slow, but now it was** **_his_ ** **, the Fantasia turned to another one of his haunting improvisations.**

**Jem played, and he played the lives of those around him: sweet Henry, hardworking Charlotte, dear Sophie, demeaning Jessamine—and of course, his endearing** **_parabatai_ ** **.**

**Will Herondale, young warrior, coquettish Nephilim, broken mortal.**

**Will, who moved through his world with nimble feet; Will, who leaped through his life with only Jem as a tether to keep him on the ground.**

**Will, the boy who kept his darkest secrets behind a crumbling facade; Will, the boy who distanced himself from those he loved with bitter, twisted lies.**

**Jem played for Will with all his heart.**

**The music sympathized, chords turning low and sinister, notes wrung from the instrument as sharp as all of the things his** **_parabatai_ ** **had said to others to push them away.**

**With it came a dark sense, foreboding and ominous. Jem changed his piece to mirror his own life, the limited days he had. As the bow sawed back and forth across the strings, Jem shuddered as he recalled the nights he had thought he’d been in Hell, for surely there was only one place he could see the world made in rivers of blood and burning cities whose fire he could feel scorch the blood in his veins.**

**The music rose to a crescendo as the song shattered around him—**

**And then it was gone, and Jem’s eyes were open.**

**Will stood in the doorway wearing his nightclothes, the blue of his eyes illuminated by the moonlight. Jem’s first instinct was to apologize, for surely he must have disturbed him by playing so loudly, but then he saw the red rimming his eyes, as if he had just had a nightmare.**

**“William?” he asked, his voice small compared to the sound of his violin, which he set down in its case.**

**Will said nothing, only strode toward him and pulled Jem into a fierce embrace. The impact shook his bones, but Jem did nothing to pull away. Instead he waited for Will to stop trembling, and only then did he gently push back his shoulders. “A dream,” he told him, because it was what it was—Shadowhunters had nightmares so frequently, he himself having had recurring ones throughout the past week or so.**

**“I don’t want it to happen,” Will said quietly. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”**

**Jem listened patiently as Will told him all of it—the nightmare of the demon Yanluo’s torture, as the** **_yin fen_ ** **first entered his system, only this time it was because** **_Will_ ** **had left him behind,** **_Will_ ** **had abandoned him in the Shanghai Institute.**

**Here was the true face of Will Herondale, Jem thought, who for some reason pushed everyone away but him. He, who was dying and had a few years left to live at most. He was scared, and he was vulnerable, and Will knew it all. As** **_parabatai_ ** **, they should have known all of each other’s secrets** (how ironic, Brother Zachariah supposed, that he really did not know him at all) **, but Will opening himself like a book was always a hard feat to accomplish.**

**Jem could feel himself shivering as he remembered the day he had woken up with pale silver eyes instead of brown; the day he had woken to an empty world, suddenly and irrevocably alone.**

**“It will not happen,” Jem promised, and if there was one thing he was sure of, it was this—Will would sooner die than abandon him. There a sort of bitterness in the thought, the fact that even if Jem would not live much longer, Will would gladly die for only several more wasted days of his life. But, he supposed, that was what they were both agreeing to do, the day they had stepped into a ritual of burning fire and linked hands. “I swear it.”**

**Will gulped, and in that moment, Jem wanted to know what was hurting him** **_so_ ** **much, if only so he could be a grounding to that pain. He suspected, even then, that Will’s inner turmoil was much worse than he would ever admit—** **_something_ ** **was eating at him from the inside out, and Jem saw it to himself to find out before he and Will were separated.**

**“I am alive for now,” he whispered to the moonlight. “And I do not have many words to express the bond of the** **_parabatai_ ** **—you have always known that I am better with music than speech—but I do know from it that you are not as horrible as you pretend to be, Will. Perhaps to Jessamine” —he saw his brother’s mouth curl up into a half-smile— “but even then, not really from your heart.** **_Where thou goest, I will go_ ** **—you remember the lines, of course you do. I will go where you go, and where you stay, I will stay with you. I die if you die, and you the same for me.” That was the way it always had to be—together.**

**“Bit of a morbid bond, isn’t it?” Will said, struggling to retain some of his usual amusement. Jem humored him.**

**“And you would know all about morbidness, wouldn’t you,” he said almost fondly, although his words from before still hung between them.**

**Will managed a smile. “I apologize for interrupting you,” he told him. “I had to see if you were alright. But it was beautiful playing.” He swallowed.**

**“Thank you, Will,” Jem said, and it wasn’t only for the compliment. He knew Will should be asleep by this point (they had a Ravner to track down tomorrow), but he did not object as his brother sat on his bed, and together, they faced the window to watch the peace of the world outside.**

**If Jem closed his eyes, he could still see London burning, those metal creatures striding against the night. But this time, as he and Will sat together with the memory of the nightmare still lingering in the air, he imagined in this peace he could hear the gentle rushing of the Thames. The speckled light from the moon glossed off the surface of the** **_yin fen_ ** **box and reflected in Will’s eyes.**

**As silence passed over them, Jem threw an arm around Will’s shoulders, trying to forget about Yanluo and the** **_yin fen_ ** **and the disaster of the Shanghai Institute. Silently, he thought,** **_Someday we’ll hold on to things such as tender joy_ ** **, and out loud he whispered, “I will not die as long as you live” into the darkness.**

 


End file.
